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Cosmetic surgery in relation to altering ethnic features

Since this issue has come up repeatedly, it should be addressed in an article by itself.

The following pictures show the before (left) and after results of a rhinoplasty (nose job) for two individuals.

Fig. 1. Nose straightening in two individuals.(1, 2)

It can be seen that the white male has improved his looks by straightening his nose, but he has not made himself look less white; he has made himself look whiter. The same applies to the white female.

Now consider the following pictures of an Asian woman that has undergone rhinoplasty among some other surgical procedures. One side depicts the before pictures and the other the post-surgical outcome. I don’t need to say which is which.

Fig. 2. Pictures of an Asian woman before and after rhinoplasty plus some other surgeries.(2)

In the case of the Asian woman, the surgery makes her look less Asian/less ethnic. Her nose is shifted toward European norms. A similar statement applies to the double eyelid surgery that is popular among East Asians.

It would be difficult to find white individuals shifting their nose toward non-European norms, just as few East Asians would attempt to make their noses look more Asian. If one were to limit oneself to European populations, those attempting to change ethnic characteristics of their nose would be shifting toward Northern European norms, the most European-looking faces. Therefore, whites seeking nose jobs seek beautification, and if they seek an alteration of ethnic characteristics, they will usually seek a shift toward Nordic norms. Whereas East Asians also seek nose jobs for beautification, there are very few cases among them trying to look more Asian; the typical attempt at altering ethnic features is to look less Asian. A similar statement applies to African populations (Fig. 3; see also celebrity nose jobs such as Tyra Banks’ and Beyonce Knowles’). Those familiar with Latino and South Asian cultures will realize that the same applies to these populations, too.

Fig. 3. African-American male before rhinoplasty and after narrowing his nose.(3)

One may be tempted to describe surgical outcomes as in Fig. 2 as an attempt to look whiter, but this would be incorrect, and for reasons that I have already extensively addressed. In short, non-Europeans tend to have a mixture of admiration, neutral feelings and dislike for different physical features of European populations as well as various aspects of Western societies. The admired features cannot be explained in terms of the dominance of Western culture because this does not explain the neutrally-regarded and disliked features. And, people’s aesthetic preferences cannot be manipulated any way one wishes. The simple fact is that European facial norms are overall the most derived among human populations (Fig. 4), and people generally tend to prefer overall facial features among their co-ethnics that are somewhat more derived compared to average and especially ancestral features.

Fig. 4. No academic references are required to describe what is meant by overall derived features; a brief glance at apes next to a Greek God suffices. Apes, regardless of type, have flattened mid-facial regions/flattened noses and protruding jaws, illustrating the features of human ancestors, but Apollo has very prominent nasal bones, regressed jaws and finer facial features.

Hence, the Asian woman in Fig. 2 and others like her are trying to look more derived than average, not whiter, and this preference is intrinsic. The epicanthal folds cannot be talked about as an ancestral feature, but they are something that Asians generally do not appear to appreciate.

Some have asked why is lip augmentation among whites not considered an attempt to change ethnic characteristics in the direction of non-European norms? This is easy to answer. The following diagram depicts the results of a study by Bisson and Grobbelaar.(4, pdf) They compared the lip dimensions of white fashion models, white female controls and a handful of white female patients that had undergone lip augmentation. The four measurements on the x-axis of the graph correspond to distances 5, 6, 8 and 9 in the outline above it, respectively.

Fig. 5. Data from Bisson and Grobbelaar.(4)

Note that the lip augmentation is, on average, small, and white fashion models still, on average, have thicker lips than the post-operation patients. Of course, white fashion models in general have lip thickness well within the norm of Europeans. I also decided to get some before and after pictures of lip augmentations in white individuals to show the range of enhancement (before pictures on left):

Fig. 6. First two rows depict the aftermath of Advanta implants;(5) rows 3 and 4 show lip enhancement resulting from the administration of hyaluronic acid;(6) row 5 shows a result of fat grafting;(7) rows 6-7 and 8-9 show two individuals who underwent V-Y augmentation;(8) click for larger image; download pdfs.

In general, the enhancement is well within European norms; there is no attempt to acquire/be closer to African norms. Lip enhancement is nowhere as common among whites as double (Asian) eyelid surgery is among East Asians, and a large proportion of the patients are older individuals who have lost lip thickness compared to their youth. In my estimation, in Fig. 6, some didn’t really need lip work though the augmentation has helped and some look worse after surgery because of too thick lips for someone of European ancestry, but then cosmetic surgery worsens features in a number of cases.

Cosmetic surgery among individuals of European ancestry does not generally shift facial features toward non-European norms, and when there is a change of ethnic features, it is usually in the direction of Northern European norms (e.g., the finer, straighter noses and fuller lips of Scandinavians).

Erik, if white people's lip injections being within European norms proves they aren't trying to "look nonwhite", then nonwhite people's cosmetic procedures being within their racial/ethnic norms proves they aren't trying to "look more derived".

You quote a controlled scientific study to support the conclusion that White people's lip enhancement is not designed to make them look more like nonwhites because the results are still well within European norms, without mentioning the fact that that study says, "This could be due to technical or financial limitations of the procedure. Some patients can only justify the cost of a single ampoule of Restylane. Additionally, without local anesthetic nerve blockade, injection of more than a single ampoule becomes very uncomfortable; thus, in both cases the patients may accept a lesser result." The conductors of the study acknowledge that the patients may very well have been forced to SETTLE for lips within European norms because they could not afford more or handle the anesthesia for more. Note that among rich White celebrities who can afford more, lip injections bigger than European norms are very common.
Quote:

"In short, non-Europeans tend to have a mixture of admiration, neutral feelings and dislike for different physical features of European populations as well as various aspects of Western societies. The admired features cannot be explained in terms of the dominance of Western culture because this does not explain the neutrally-regarded and disliked features."

I agree that "Nonwhite people want to look white" is a lie. If nonwhite people want to "look white", how come I've never heard of nonwhite people getting cosmetic procedures to attain artificial freckles, or Black women with a healthy body mass index getting their behinds surgically flattened to look more like the typical White woman's behind (not to be confused with liposuction on overweight behinds), or Blacks getting their lips reduced to the extreme thinness of many Northern Europeans' lips (the clearly mentally ill self-mutilator Michael Jackson is not representative of mentally normal Blacks), or those nonwhites with generally thicker hair than Whites, such as Blacks and Latinos, having hair folicles removed to create the thinner-haired White look? There are plenty of physical features that are typical of or unique to White people that nonwhite people do NOT want.

My point: Erik, you have NOT proved that nonwhite people's cosmetic surgery procedures IN GENERAL create results outside the norm for their racial/ethnic groups. Not only is your nonwhite study sample too small to reach any statistical conclusions (two celebrities plus two anonymous people), but even within that meaninglessly small study sample, you do not even address the issue of whether their cosmetic surgery results were within the norm for their respective racial/ethnic groups. My guess is that, in three cases out of four, the answer is yes; Tyra Banks' and Beyonce Knowles' nose jobs are still within the norms for Black Americans (which is why many people cannot even tell those two have nose jobs), and among the two anonymous people photographed, the Black man's nose job is well within the norm for Black Americans. Only one of your four examples, the Asian woman with the nose job, has results that appear to be POSSIBLY outside the norm for her ethnicity, and I'm not even sure about that since you don't say what her ethnicity is.

As for East Asian women's double eyelid surgery, which does create a result outside their ethnic norm, I do not know the percentage of East Asian women who get this surgery, but I've lived in California which has a HUGE East Asian population and MOST of the East Asian women I saw there did not have double eyelid surgery. So it appears that they do not want to "look more derived".

If the fact that White people's lip injections are usually within European norms (and that may be purely the result of inability to afford more expensive lip injections bigger than European norms, which are very popular with rich White celebrities) proves White people who get lip injections aren't trying to "look nonwhite", then the very possible fact that nonwhite people's cosmetic surgery is usually within their ethnic norms (prove it or disprove it - you didn't bother to gather data on this) proves nonwhite people aren't trying to "look more derived". You can't have it both ways.
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Whipped Honey said:My point: Erik, you have NOT proved that nonwhite people’s cosmetic surgery procedures IN GENERAL create results outside the norm for their racial/ethnic groups.

I agree with you that many of these nonwhite surgical procedures are still within the normal range of features for their groups. Yet there seems to be a pattern of those alterations tending in the direction of what Erik calls "derived" features, and away from certain ethnic features, even if still inside the normal range for that ethnicity. Plastic surgery among whites does not exhibit this same tendency.

Erik said:The simple fact is that European facial norms are overall the most derived among human populations (Fig. 4), and people generally tend to prefer overall facial features among their co-ethnics that are somewhat more derived compared to average and especially ancestral features.

I can guess what you mean by "derived," but perhaps you could explain its meaning more explicitly? Also, what would be an explanation for why Europeans have more derived facial features?

Erik doesn't have the balls to come out and say that he thinks derived (white) features are prettier and more "feminine" than ancestral (non-white) features. He will tip toe around the issue and try to assert that non-whites are constantly trying to look more white and that whites never try to look less white.

Your "evidence" that Beyonce has had a nose job is suspect because the pictures are undated and the one on the right is obviously heavily airbrushed.

Using ape pictures to contrast ancestral features and "derived" (white) features does not earn you any brownie points Erik. Were you too scared to compare non-white features with white ones and then attempt to call white features more desirable? Your assertion that the preference for white features over non-white features is intrinsic is pretty damn offensive and it's another example of you confusing your opinion with actual fact.

hmmm, weird. Regarding the first guy you posted, I always hear ski-slope noses descriped as a non-white feature yet the only people I regularly see them on seem to be whites, negroes have straight noses and asians have straight-convex noses. I'd say the first guy added more definition to his nose rather than made his nose 'whiter' although highly defined features are more likely to be caucasian, on average.

That first guy you posted has a nose that's extremely rare, and seems to be more of a genetic anomoly than anything.

I thought you've said many times before that Europeans wern't the only attractive race? Why is this post basically saying that non-european women have ugly noses?

And what's the deal with epicanthic folds among asians? There's many of them naturally without the feature, so could you care to explain how this preference has never, ever been shown among their cultures until recently?

Ah, so you're saying that a preference for white features is intrinsic? That's wonderful. Looks like many billions of people there are pretty disadvantaged in the looks department. You're shitting on all those people here.

I somewhat agree with you that there is SOMEWHAT of a preference for more "european" looking features, but human beauty preferences are so broad, and this seems to be only a vague framework.

Could you care to explain how so many white men have an interest in east asian women, despite them commonly having larger jaws, cheekbones, wider faces etc. ? How are the size of the facial features confounded with masculinity? You know, how east asians have lower testosterone levels?

And then there's your attempt to quantify these as more derived. Your site cites how Europeans and the ainu have been cooking food longer than other populations, yet this is heavily contradicted by how most non-african humans are descended from northeast africans, who have STRONGLY caucasian facial features, and the earliest europeans- the cro-magnons- had broader, larger facial features than even northeast africans- IE, ethiopians and somalians.

How does cooking food create such huge differences in cranio-facial structure? Aren't you saying that most non-whites have more primitive facial structures?

And yes, this is internetchum, but I'm just condensing what I've sent here. It's been OVER 2 MONTHES since I sent that email. Why should it be THAT HARD to get back to me?

Beyonce Knowles did have a nose job. In Erik's two photographs of Beyonce before and after the nose job, the "before" picture is not from her 2002 big-haired "Austin Powers in Goldmember" phase but from around 1998 when her group Destiny's Child's first album came out. Note that in the before and after pictures, the shape of her nose tip is so different that it cannot be a trick of airbrushing, and at any rate, both pictures are clearly professional and airbrushed. All this is beside the point; let's stick to the real issue.

The "innate preferences" of femininity and derivation would largely seem to apply to females only, no matter how broad it is.

Why do so many white females in the US, and elsewhere show such a strong preference for black men? Media and cultural conditioning play a role, but alot of it seems to come from their greater masculinity in facial features and the like, due to testosterone differences. That black man you cited had a rather anamolous nasal structure to begin with- the changes were insignificant. Why wouldn't he go for a full-blown European nose instead of getting this barely noticable change?

Really, I just find the idea of any female nose that isn't ultra-thin, ultra-narrow, ultra-straight bridged and small to be inferior or less attractive.

8D: I have had enough of reading your sick sexual fantasies. Do not describe them at this site anymore. You must also stop using “The Donald” as an alias and no more impersonating others. You will be banned from commenting if you don’t behave.

Whipped honey: The issue is not merely one of ending up within population norms, there is the directionality question and the question of the overall picture from multiple surgical procedures. How many Asians undergo surgery to change double eyelids to a single eyelid as opposed to the opposite? How many Asians go from right to left in Fig. 2 as opposed to left to right? How many Asians go from smaller than average cheekbones to larger than average compared to the reverse? How many cosmetic surgery procedures can you name among Northern Europeans that are directed toward shifting facial features toward the non-European side of the North European average?

Bisson and Grobbelaar’s contention about the reason why the patients didn’t end up with lips as thick of the models’ lips -- technical/financial limitations -- is a possibility, but there is another possibility: the patients didn’t want lips as thick. The authors assume that fashion models’ looks must be highly appealing to the general population, but anyone who has gone through this site knows better. There are some white celebrities that have gotten notably prominent lips, but guess what? They end up on awfulplasticsurgery.com (go to the section titled “Bad Collagen in Lips”).

I agree that I have not proved “that nonwhite people’s cosmetic surgery procedures IN GENERAL create results outside the norm for their racial/ethnic groups,” and this is because I never made this argument. In relation to double eyelid surgery, you said that you have seen many without one and ‘So it appears that they do not want to “look more derived”.’ Where did I say that the single eyelid is an ancestral feature? The double eyelid surgery serves to make one look less ethnic; the issue of looking more derived is not applicable here. The nose surgery in Fig. 2 serves to make the woman look both less ethnic and more derived.

Hugh Ristik: Words cannot describe as well what the Apollo vs. apes image shows in regard to what is overall more derived. The reasons for Europeans having faces more overall derived than other populations have to do with earlier switching to eating cooked food and stronger sexual selection (especially Northern Europeans); chance factors would have also played a role, setting the foundation for sexual selection and natural selection (environment) to mold face shape.

Danielle: Derived features are not synonymous with white features, though there is considerable overlap between the two. Also, derived features are not more “feminine.” More prominent nasal bones and more regressed jaws are in the direction of more derived features, but will also result from greater masculinization. This doesn’t mean that derived features are more “masculine.” Ancestral-derived and masculine-feminine variation are of different natures.

There is no implication above that “preference for white features over non-white features is intrinsic”; the argument has to do with overall derived facial features; if you don’t believe me, see how many Asians aesthetically prefer the nose of the woman in Fig. 2 before her major nose job over the altered nose.

Not from Twisty’s: The first man shown in the article has made his nose look whiter in the sense that he has approached the central tendency among Europeans. You will find others like him, but they will be a minority among Europeans.

BSP: Please do not post a large number of very short comments. Consolidate your arguments into a single comment or the least number of comments. I do not recall ever saying that “Europeans wern’t the only attractive race.” I said that attractive people are found in all ethnic groups; obviously, unattractive people are also found in all populations. This article is not saying that “non-european women have ugly noses.” The latter is your bizarre impression. If you read enough of this site then it should be clear that the attractiveness of different ethnic groups cannot be objectively compared. This article does not compare the attractiveness of noses/other features of different ethnic groups, but addresses within-group issues, namely people preferring among their co-ethnics somewhat more overall derived than average and especially ancestral features.

Technological advances in the twentieth century have made global Television a reality and intercontinental travel quick plus cheap. As a result, a large number of Asians have been extensively exposed to the physical features of major ethnic groups around the world. Hence, Asians’ aesthetic preferences in relation to variation among themselves and humans in general will be clearly observed and properly documented in recent decades rather than in the distant past.

I made the argument about non-Europeans having a mixture of admiration, neutral feelings and dislike for various physical features of Europeans. So I don’t see how you can write, “so you’re saying that a preference for white features is intrinsic?” It is also strange that you wrote, “I somewhat agree with you that there is SOMEWHAT of a preference for more “european” looking features...” when I didn’t argue this; read again my reply to others.

Even if two populations differ in testosterone levels, there is bound to be considerable overlap between them, and when face pictures of same-sex individuals from different populations are being compared, how does one know who has higher testosterone than the other? This is why there is a confound regarding the extent to which face shape differences between individuals from different ethnic groups differ as a result of the extent of masculinization vs. other factors.

Population variation in transitioning to cooked food alone doesn’t explain inter-population differences in skull shape; genetic drift, climate and different degrees of sexual selection are also factors. This has been discussed elsewhere within this site. I am not saying “most non-whites have more primitive facial structures,” but that Europeans have an overall more derived face shape; you will find features such as the depth of the infraglabellar notch, the sagittal rounding of the forehead, supraorbital robusticity, etc. where Europeans are not the most derived populations.

I am not only focusing on the nose, and certainly haven’t used “despised” to describe less preferred features. Jaws have been discussed elsewhere. The section on aesthetics in international beauty pageants discusses the evidence you are looking for regarding aesthetic preferences related to ancestral vs. derived features within ethnic groups.

Southern European noses vs. Northern Europeans noses were touched upon in a previous article; don’t bring them up here. Why do you expect the African-American man to get a fully European-looking nose? Look at Michael Jackson; he failed and ended up looking like a freak; in many cases, it just isn’t possible, and people do not want to look freakish.

Yes, the Asian woman altered a bunch of features, and I mentioned this. So don’t tell me, “You’re not even really trying there.”

The value of your poll about Italians being rated #1 can only be assessed if you cite it and we see how meaningful it is; otherwise it is useless. Your questions about so many white men being attracted to Asian women or so many white women being attracted to black men are not relevant, and responding to them is unnecessary without non-anecdotal evidence for them; I have never gotten these impressions.

If you find this article grotesque, then I recommend that you avoid this site since there will be other articles posted here that you will likely be disturbed by, too. I often take a long time to respond to emails and now even comments at the blog; I just don’t have the time to respond promptly. Additionally, as in your comments above, your emails addressed many issues not related to my work or included materials that were distortions of my arguments, and hence answering your emails is not a priority.

As I've posted this before I feel it's also appropriate to post again since Erik makes another lame attempt to subtley "prove" (without coming off too much as a racist because he knows he would loose any shread of credibility) that "white" features are better.

I think everyone should know that you use "research" from white supremicists to support your statements. Jean-Philippe Rushton being one such person who is profiled as a top 40 Racist to look out for on their site:

This dude does bogus studies to prove whites are better physically and mentally--often performing his research at the mall. Tenure system keeps him around....way to go Erik for "backing up your arguments" with solid unbiased sources. White power!! (right?)

Also, Sid, where does Erik use work from Rushton? Although he tackles the idea of race differences in testosterone, this is a broad, basic topic unconcerned with what racial researchers have to say, and while Erik does seem to lean moreso to the hereditarian side of the debate on things, this is mostly libel.

Sidhatzer4ever: Do not spam by posting the same comment in multiple entries. I replied as follows to your original comment:

Quote:

Where have I used Rushton to support my arguments? Read carefully; D’Artagnan cited Rushton and I critiqued the evidence. Besides, using the “guilt by association” argument is a logical fallacy. You haven’t critiqued any of the studies or the synthesis.

Rushton is a white supremacist? LOL! He has long maintained that Northeast Asians are more intelligent than whites. The SPLC organization is a joke.

BSP: Reply using the fewest possible words. You can structure the reply by using brief references to/paraphrases of my individual arguments. This approach is a basic unsaid guideline in internet discussions.

I have only briefly touched upon testosterone and ethnicity, and this was in response to D’Artagnan. This is not a topic of much relevance to this site. Also, this site is primarily concerned with physical appearance and hence the discussion will obviously lean toward the “hereditarian side.”

"I have only briefly touched upon testosterone and ethnicity, and this was in response to D’Artagnan. This is not a topic of much relevance to this site. Also, this site is primarily concerned with physical appearance and hence the discussion will obviously lean toward the “hereditarian side.”"

Er, in what sense? The idea of an objective preference for beauty or the heritability of physical features?

That study shouldn't be too surprising. Since the link between IQ and brain size has been so heavily established, women would require a larger hip size to give birth to bigger brained babies, and thus, higher IQ women would typically have this physical feature.

"In general, the [European lip] enhancement is well within European norms; there is no attempt to acquire/be closer to African norms."
"The [African rhinoplasty] issue is not merely one of ending up within population norms, there is the directionality question"

Erik, you contradict yourself. Make up your mind what's more important in terms of assessing the motivation for cosmetic surgery procedures: staying within one's racial/ethnic norm or directionality? If the directionality of African rhinoplasty proves they're trying to look "more derived" REGARDLESS of the fact that they generally stay within African norms, then the directionality of European lip enhancement proves they're trying to look "more African" REGARDLESS of the fact that they generally stay within European norms. You can't change your mind depending on which race you're talking about!
Quote:

"There are some white celebrities that have gotten notably prominent lips, but guess what? They end up on awfulplasticsurgery.com (go to the section titled “Bad Collagen in Lips”)."

That proves nothing. So whoever runs awfulplasticsurgery.com does not like bigger-than-European-norm lip injections on white celebrities; that does not prove that the celebrities themselves, their fans or the general public agree. Pamela Anderson rose from successful nude model to THE most popular female sex symbol of her generation in the Western world only AFTER she got bigger-than-European-norm lip injections. Apparently, lots of white guys like a white girl with African lips!
Quote:

"How many Asians undergo surgery to change double eyelids to a single eyelid as opposed to the opposite?"

Probably very, very few Asians undergo surgery to change double eyelids to a single eyelid as opposed to the opposite - and probably very, very few Europeans undergo lip surgery to change bigger lips into smaller ones as opposed to the opposite.
Quote:

"How many cosmetic surgery procedures can you name among Northern Europeans that are directed toward shifting facial features toward the non-European side of the North European average?"

1. Lip injections.
2. Nose jobs specifically to correct ski jump noses (as opposed to nose jobs for other reasons), as ski jump noses are an almost exclusively Northern European trait, as seen in the first picture on this page.
3. Cheek implants, which make them look more like Native Americans who have generally more prominent natural cheekbones than any other people on Earth.
4. Eyeliner tattoos, which are gaining in popularity and are designed to give white women the look of dark, thick eyelashes that is naturally more common among African/Latina women.

In other words, the EXACT SAME parts - eyes, noses, mouths - that nonwhite people alter to look "more derived", white people alter to look closer to nonwhite norms.

The *percentage* of white vs nonwhite people who get these parts altered: Eyes and nose - more nonwhites. Lips - more whites.

The important issue you have not addressed at all on this blog entry so far: What percentage of ANY group of people gets ANY plastic surgery? In America, whites are far more likely to get plastic surgery than nonwhites, and blacks are less likely to get plastic surgery than anybody else. In the American state with the highest percentage of Asians, California, the vast majority of Asians with single eyelids do NOT get double eyelid surgery. Double eyelid surgery seems to be far more popular in almost 100% Asian Korea than in almost 100% non-Asian America; why that is, is a very interesting question.
:question:

I'm still putting together my reply, but again Erik, why hasn't this preference for non-epicanthic folds been shown until so recently among east asians? I mean yeah, plastic surgery was very primitive up until recently, but never in a single east asian society where there existed strong variation among the degrees of slanting with the epicanthic fold- especially with Korea, which has a very sizable portion of it's population without the trait- has this been shown. If true, this preference would have been blatant and extensively written about, with women having lacking epicanthic folds being favored, and likewise this trait being more bred for.

What would be behind this preference then? Supposedly having larger eyes looking more pedomorphic? One can have large, prominent eyes and still attain that look with prominent epicanthic folds. Sorry, but some people take offense to the idea of you pushing off this being an innately disliked trait.

Just one last thing before I put together my actual reply- but, since you push off the idea of the facial structure of whites as being typically more derived- IE, being more suited to chewing and consuming cooked food- are you saying those with less derived features, such as larger jaws, teeth, cheekbones, more prognathistic jaws are more suited to consuming uncooked food, and thus would have greater difficulty chewing and consuming, and recieving adequate nutrition from cooked food? What about how things like how differences in bone density that would factor into this, such as how they would accentuate the strength of such structures, and likewise for differences in muscle strength?

And one last thing- why does that white nationalist/supremacist blog use so many of the same references as you, despite being older than this site?

Look, are you sure I can't quote your points individually? It's really repetetive and contrived to basically detail everything I want to go at. I'm not used to blogs that don't allow you to quote long lines of text like that. Can I just bullet your points or what?

Fine, I'll just bullet each of your paragraphs. You wrote 11, so I'll go with that.

1: Yes, I did read where you said that “not only europeans are attractive”, and that’s what I meant- just a miswording, sorry. However, how is it my “bizzare impression” that you’re saying non-european women have ugly noses when you keep drumming up the idea of people constantly wanting to get plastic surgery to shift their noses to more “derived” norms? And if you say that such things can’t be objectively compared, what’s with this? Why not be fair and do across group issues? Why not be fair as well and tell us what are the more preffered, intrinsic noses among humans? BTW, that woman you cite appears to be southeast asian, and those sorts of noses are very rare as a result of normal phenotypic variation in such a group. Hell, she looks indian now.

And really, how can nasal structures be pushed off as being more derived? As you should obviously know, variations in human nose structure are due to climactic differences- nothing to do with climate here.

2: Yes, and you still don’t have anything to back up the idea of east asians going for this surgery because of slit-eyes being considered less attractive, especially when this preference is so recent, and they had plenty of such individuals in their own societies. Sorry, but I’m abit unnerved at something like this when you’re offering no fucking middle-ground. You read all too like that majorityrights blog I linked to.

3: Many of the very features you push off are the most prominent ones, so why wouldn’t non-europeans go after them? What are these neutrally regarded features?

And yes, you really are saying that european features are more preffered. The most “derived” ones happen to be the most common among europeans, so why tap-dance around such basic semantics?

4: Yeah, that’s one of the very things I asked in the email. How can you really tell? While masculization and femininity can typically work independently of testosterone differences, there are a number of features that are usually strongly tied to these differences, and that’s what shows up in east asians.

5: Well, in regards to cro-magnons, that was a moot point anyway for me, since the difference in jaw structures were moderate, and cro-magnons existed so long ago.

As for east africans, would you care to quote the relevant passages that push them off as being… mixed? With southern europeans? I’ve heard the claim that east africans are mixed all too often, which usually pops up in racial nationalist circles. Usually arab admixture is pushed off, but now white admixture? I know someone who’s dealt with this topic a lot, so he might be able to weight in on it. Either way, east africans don’t look at all like what one would expect of the typical offspring of africans and europeans.

6: Stop saying that “it’s been discussed elsewhere on this site”. Erik, I HAVE read much of your site- pretty much all of it beyond the blog entries. I should have clarified more there, but the sort of structures you push off as being largely resultant of chewing food are just too variable in modern human populations. For example, east asians have typically large cheekbones and jaws, yet small mouths and flat jaws like europeans. Africans, although seeming to have higher levels of less-derived features than europeans, don’t commonly show the level of cheek and jaw size seen in east asians as a result of non-testosterone mediated differences, and they also show such profound phenotype diversity due to being the oldest human ethnic group.

7: I know you haven’t used the term “despised”, but your tone on this isn’t very neutral.
8: What were you reffering to here?

9: This really doesn’t answer much, as you don’t really show what the average difference is between northern and southern european noses. And this is a rather contradictory statement you make:

“In addition, Moslems often despise the gender egalitarianism and women’s rights situation in the Nordic nations, the best of its kind, and would consider it an abomination to adopt the secular elements of Western culture, yet have admiration for fine and chiseled Nordic noses.”

And yet why would they go for nasal structures that are more compliant with the sort of culture they despise? It’s hard to say, but I don’t think you can claim victory for those intrinsic nordic features.

And on that african-american man, as I said earlier, this preference seems to be less among men. Michael Jackson is a poor comparison too, because of how much of an extremity he was- IE, his plastic surgery went on for decades, and he wanted to look like a white woman.

9: Yes, I soon realized what you said about that asian woman, sorry.

10: Well, it is too bad, because I can’t find the poll right now. However, how can you HONESTLY say that this preference for east asian women among white men is anecdotal? Have you ever looked at interracial dating patterns and marriage patterns? The whole asian fetish thing? This is blatant.

11: It’s only this article I’ve found grotesque, really. I have no problem with the rest of your site or blog. I’ve only been sporadically following since it first caught my attention in september.

And it’s pretty much bullshit that my email had nothing to do with your site, nor any sorts of distortions. My email was prompted on the idea of innate standards of beauty and it’s implication for phyiscal differences among ethnic groups- I asked many questions about certain ethnic features and how they comply with beauty standards, and even suggested for you to cover these issues more indepth.

Sorry if I sound somewhat angry, but I really don’t like how you really haven’t replied to my questions AT ALL in well over 2 damn months, and how I’ve had to go onto your blog to even get an answer out, and now you’re being slow with this too. Why is any of this so much of a problem to keep on top of?

Hugh Ristik: Thanks for informing me about the study on WHR and intelligence in women. I read it and will comment on it in a new article. In the meantime, here is the paper for interested readers.

Whipped honey: Stop wasting my time. I gave you three issues; where the surgery places the person compared to ethnic norms, what is the direction of change and what is the overall picture from multiple procedures. The most attractive European individuals, as judged by people of European ancestry, look very European, whereas the most attractive non-Europeans, as judged by their co-ethnics, look less ethnic than the norms of their populations and have faces overall closer to Europeans. This is reflected in the overall picture from cosmetic surgery.

I agree with the webmaster of awfulplasticsurgery.com regarding his classifications of bad lip enhancements. Try asking around, and focus on people of European ancestry.

You have to be really ignorant to believe that Pamela Anderson rose from successful nude model to an international sex symbol (1990s) because of lip injections. What about her fake breasts and fake hair? Her nude stardom resulted from luck; she ran into Hugh Hefner, a bisexual male, who happens to like masculinized bleached brunettes with fake breasts. When you have masculinized fashion models in the limelight and the biggest men’s magazine is run by a bisexual male, if a woman like Pamela Anderson is heavily promoted in made-up form and at a time when the internet hasn’t caught on, should it be surprising that someone like Pamela ends up being a sex symbol?

What do you mean “very, very few Asians undergo surgery”? When they have the money, the frequency is higher than rare. You saw the Tyra Banks video in a previous article. The testimony of an Asian physician in it argues against your notion.

Let us see how many cosmetic surgery procedures you have named among Northern Europeans that are directed toward shifting facial features toward the non-European side of the North European average.

You mentioned 4 procedures. The 4th one, eyeliner tattoos, is not a form of cosmetic surgery. The darkness of eyelashes is irrelevant; plenty of Europeans have dark eyelashes, and Europeans have all hair colors in substantial numbers, i.e., no hair color is more or less European. You haven’t cited any evidence that eyelashes are thicker in African/Latina women.

You mentioned an uncommon surgical procedure, cheekbone augmentation, but cited no evidence that it serves to make Europeans lean toward Native Americans.

You mentioned lip injections, but as I have shown above and also presented data elsewhere within site about soft tissue measurements among people of European ancestry, the end result, on average, does not lean toward the non-European side of the North European average.

Your assertion about nose jobs is laughable. The man shown on top was a secondary rhinoplasty patient, whose pictures appeared in a paper that I provided (pdf) in a previous article. His original nose had a concave profile, not as extreme as you see on top of this page. His first surgery was unsatisfactory and then the second surgery added implants. Anyway, I have showed this 3-D assessment of Northwest European averages, and you can see that the average nose profile doesn’t approach the ski-jump profile. Below you will find another example.

In the image above, the first row pictures and the second row pictures are taken from the following papers, respectively:

The image shows average 3-D assessments of the following samples: English young adults, Bangladeshi teenagers (ages 13-18) and adult Chinese women. Based on the averages, it is easy to predict that compared to the Northern European sample, the frequency of concave noses would be higher among East Asians and convex noses higher in the South Asians (more obvious in the male sample in the picture; should be more obvious as one goes west toward the Middle East and if one uses adults rather than teenagers). The man on top of this page went from a less European to a more European nose, which is common among white individuals seeking nose jobs, and this is the opposite of what I asked you to come up with evidence for. Look at me...citing all these references. Come up with comparable citations/evidence to the contrary or don’t waste my time.

East Asians in America are ethnically diverse. Koreans have some of the highest rates of a single upper eyelid crease, and hence they would be more likely to seek double eyelid surgery than other Asians.

Cosmetic surgery requires disposable income, and whites are more likely to have it than African-Americans. So don’t go into who has more surgeries. Look up what features people optimally desire, especially if you have controlled laboratory studies (and I have cited a detailed study on East Asian preferences elsewhere) and make your inferences about desired overall face shape among populations.

Right... an organization that is devoted to combating racism and helping to alleviate hate crimes is a real shame. Unlike you the people of the SPL center actually devote themselves to important work. You on the other hand spend your days on porn sites comparing and contrasting women to give yourself some sort of purpose. PATHETIC. The real joke here is you and this site--it serves no constructive purpose other than to make a pathetic man feel worthy against women he will never measure up to. Comparing races is a waste of time and serves no purpose other than to make one race feel more superior to another. Your criteria of beauty is NOT the Truth. If it were everyone would agree with you and they obviously don't. It doesn't matter how many "studies" you show or references you cite. Now if you'll excuse me, I've wasted enough of my time here and have more important things to do.

"The most attractive European individuals, as judged by people of European ancestry, look very European, whereas the most attractive non-Europeans, as judged by their co-ethnics, look less ethnic than the norms of their populations and have faces overall closer to Europeans. This is reflected in the overall picture from cosmetic surgery."

Erik, the flaw in your claims about what non-Europeans find attractive is that you depend on cosmetic surgery procedures to extrapolate conclusions about whole populations, but the minority of non-Europeans who get cosmetic surgery do NOT necessarily represent the majority of non-Europeans who do not get cosmetic surgery, and not just because they can't afford it; all Black American celebrities can afford cosmetic surgery but most of them don't get it.
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"You have to be really ignorant to believe that Pamela Anderson rose from successful nude model to an international sex symbol (1990s) because of lip injections. What about her fake breasts and fake hair? Her nude stardom resulted from luck; she ran into Hugh Hefner, a bisexual male, who happens to like masculinized bleached brunettes with fake breasts."

I did not say Pamela Anderson rose from a successful nude model to the most popular female sex symbol in the Western word in the 1990's "because of" lip injections; I said "AFTER" lip injections. I never suggested that her lip injections were the only or primary reason for her popularity with white males.

Erik, provide PROOF that Hugh Hefner is bisexual or you hurt your credibility by repeating an unsubstantiated rumor. You know damn well that the former sex partners of celebrities can make money by selling lies about their famous ex-lovers.
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"What do you mean “very, very few Asians undergo surgery”? When they have the money, the frequency is higher than rare."

"Higher than rare" is not a real answer. What percentage? Even a huge percentage can still be a minority. You STILL refuse to address my points: Why is double eyelid surgery more popular among Asians in Asia than among Asians in America - perhaps because Asians in Asia are more influenced by Asian cultures' emphasis on conformity so they get the surgery because so many other people around them do, while Asians in America are influenced by American cultures' emphasis on individualistic nonconformity? That is just my guess; if anyone has a better guess I'd be happy to read it.
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"You haven’t cited any evidence that eyelashes are thicker in African/Latina women."

I said "the look of dark, thick eyelashes that is naturally more common among African/Latina women.", meaning not that they have thicker eyelashes but that they are far more likely statistically to have very dark hair, and so their eyelashes appear thicker because they are more visible in contrast to skin color. Sorry I wasn't clear.
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"you can see that the average nose profile doesn’t approach the ski-jump profile."

I never said the average European nose profile approaches the ski-jump profile. I made it clear that I was speaking of exceptions when I said, "Nose jobs specifically to correct ski jump noses (as opposed to nose jobs for other reasons)".
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"Cosmetic surgery requires disposable income, and whites are more likely to have it than African-Americans. So don’t go into who has more surgeries. Look up what features people optimally desire"

What features *people who have plastic surgery* optimally desire does NOT prove what features *people who do not have plastic surgery* optimally desire. It's not just a question of having disposable income. All Black American celebrities have disposable income, yet the overwhelming majority of Black American celebrities do NOT get rhinoplasty.

Erik, you still haven't answered BSP's question as to why, if there is an innate preference for "more derived" features, Asian cultures did not consider double eyelids more attractive than single eyelids before 20th century modern Western media saturation.

"Erik, you still haven’t answered BSP’s question as to why, if there is an innate preference for “more derived” features, Asian cultures did not consider double eyelids more attractive than single eyelids before 20th century modern Western media saturation. "

Exactly. I think well over 20% of Korea's population (just South Korea, not sure about North) naturally lack epicanthic folds, and yet surgery to remove it, out of all east asian majority nations, is highest in South Korea. Even if there were an innate preference for non-epicanthic eyes on average, the surgery rate seen among them now for their removal is just too high. That rate would only be around for a truly ugly, repulsive trait if it were so wholly innate.

Besides, exactly what other "ethnic features" are you reffering to?There's such considerable overlap among human ethnic groups among the cranio-facial structure, and for them all, there's only a few distinctive traits truly setting them all apart. Compared to Europeans, how different would africans look if you made their jaws flatter and their orbits less dense and round? How different would east asians look compared to europeans if their facial profiles wern't so flat?

Although you could certainly consider less distinctive traits like the overall size of the jaws and cheekbones ethnic traitd due to greatly differing group averages, let me ask you this- would this japanese woman look better if she had cheek reduction and the like as you alluded to?:http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/1323/947f7f9af9934aff35f315dfv7.jpg

I doubt it. Well, it wouldn't make a difference. Although she seems to be in her early 30's, and her mouth seems rather large, she has extremely feminine, soft, and gracile features overall, despite having very large cheeks and jaw. I think you once mentioned elsewhere on this site that overal robustness shouldn't be confounded with feminity, right?

She's just one example, but a very prominent one I'd say. Look- in terms of some cranio-facial features, I, again, wouldn't deny that ones shifted somewhat more towards european norms are more desired, but this seems to hold true moreso for women, this is a rather small, broad classification overall, and likewise, why haven't you provided what you think are in the proper aestethic range of nasal structure for non-europeans? And please stop reffering to nasal differences under the banner of how derived they are? Primates only had such larger noses due to bigger nasal cavities allowing them to smell better, and differences among nasal structures among human populations are due to climactic differences. If these could be classified as more "derived", noses with very tall set bridges, projecting out extensively from the face, and just being huge and meaty overall would fit that. Yet how many people really find that attractive?

-Erik proposes that a preference for more "derived" features is due to their pedomorphism, which is considered near-universally attractive, and is considered feminine. Yet, again, large cheekbones and jaws, while less-derived than smaller ones, have nothing to do with femininity, so something else must be at play here.

-Epicanthic folds have nothing to do with derivation, but Erik just thinks they're more preffered.

Francois, I was saying the same thing. It's absurd to apply "derivation" to nasal structure, and likewise rank that on attractiveness. The royalty of Saudi Arabia, for example, have almost grotesquely large noses. Among the largest I've seen among humans.

Oh, another thing- as I've said in another thread, what sort of research has been done in regards to the attractive value of facial width and overall size, along with the size of the cheekbones and jaw- regardless of how feminine they are?

"With eyelid surgery the fastest-growing type of plastic surgery in the Asian community in California and across the country, numerous other young women are facing the same decision. Approximately 75 percent of all Koreans and 50 percent of all other Asians are born without the double eyelid crease."

I admit, it doesn't give references, and it seems abit questionable since it talks about the 50% figure for all other asians- but I'm not even sure what asians those area.

The thing to note here is that the surgery is most common in Korea, and Korea- both sides- are easily among the most racist/racialist societies in all of east asia, and perhaps the world. Look up the North Korean views on race and the evolution of South Korean racial attitudes sometime. What I'm getting at is how, in face of all this, it seems to lean to cultural attitudes being the result of this. Although east asians have often imitated westerns in ways, this preference is still very recent, and how east asians seemed to find the look of double-eyelids distasteful in pre-modern times. What with slurs like "round-eye".

If you can dig up the relevant ethnographic data on the frequencies, do so, and likewise perhaps some cite perception studies on how people rank epicanthic folds. I'm rather dissapointed, again, on how you'd jump on the bandwagon on the idea of this being an innately less attractive trait when you claim to not being arguing towards a largely ethnocentric standard of beauty, and likewise the whole thing about objectivity in regards to ethnic features.

Sidhatzer4ever: I called the SPLC a joke, not a sham, and for a reason that you have ignored. The SPLC is doing important work but not me? Whereas I admit that my work is not of great importance, there is a need for it, and no one else is tackling some of the problems that I am. It is shameful that I have to browse the collections of adult-oriented sites to obtain pictures of feminine and attractive women when I should be able to browse the archives of beauty pageant contestants, fashion modeling agencies and other mainstream sources for such women. Also, not one source out there is addressing the real reason behind the thinness of high-fashion models, which needs to be disseminated if unnecessary dieting on the part of a number of girls and women is to be reduced.

“Everyone agreeing with it” is not a criterion for truth. Truth is not decided by vote.

I disagree that the SPLC is doing important work, and to understand this, consider the example of hatewatch.org, a website that has been defunct for many years though accessing it will forward you to the SPLC website. Hatewatch.org aimed to combat bigotry and hate by exposing the bigots, and it extensively cataloged “hate sites” on the web. What do you think happened? The exact opposite of what the hatewatch.org site had intended as it helped spread the message of the “hate sites” to a wider audience. The people behind the hatewatch.org website failed to understand that what they considered to be bigotry and hate speech would be considered good information by many others. The hatewatch.org site was taken down. The SPLC knows this, yet why does it use a similar methodology, namely give publicity to the “most dangerous” white supremacists and their message? The fact is that the SPLC isn’t exposing the “most dangerous” groups. The people and organizations it is listing under “most dangerous” people/groups fall under four categories: fake white supremacist organizations set up to trap genuine white supremacists; people who have been read enough so that one cannot pretend that they don’t exist, but their arguments bother the SPLC and hence it smears them; token and useless non-white extremist groups thrown in to present an impression of being unbiased; and low IQ, criminal-type white supremacists who are incapable of achieving white supremacist goals.

The last type of “most dangerous” people/groups listed by the SPLC is actually useful to the SPLC’s long-term goals. Thanks to the increased publicity, one day a low IQ white man with borderline paranoid schizophrenia and prejudice against non-whites will come across and join one of these groups. He does drugs and he has a gun. Another day, he reads about a white victim of a horrible crime perpetrated by non-whites, and this crime is ignored by the mainstream media. He gets high on drugs and goes out, is crossed by a non-white, and loses it. He goes on a shooting spree, injuring and killing a bunch of non-whites. The incident is widely covered in the mainstream media, and the SPLC’s major goals are realized: a full-scale assault on the first and second amendments to the U.S. Constitution (freedom of speech and gun ownership, respectively). And you tell us that the SPLC is doing important work! I suppose yes if you share its “hate beliefs.”

Whipped honey: You must make a proper effort to read this site before arguing with me. Your statement...

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Erik, the flaw in your claims about what non-Europeans find attractive is that you depend on cosmetic surgery procedures to extrapolate conclusions about whole populations...

...does not follow from the evidence.

I cited this study on the ratings of Korean women by Koreans, and it was clearly shown that the overall face shape of attractive Koreans is shifted toward European norms compared to the average. Cosmetic surgery was not an issue in this study. I have provided the main diagrams and numerical results from this study for over one year now.

I have answered the question about why East Asians in America apparently do not seek double eyelid surgeries at the high rates of some specific East Asian populations. East Asians in America come from all over East Asia and, on average, do not have the same frequency of single upper eyelids as, say, Koreans. So what do you expect? Another possible reason is that if the surgery is intended to improve looks, then the improvement is of greater weight if those undergoing surgery are surrounded by Asians as opposed to Europeans. Your notion about conformity is not very plausible. Not all East Asians in Asia with a single upper eyelid seek double eyelid surgery.

So the eyelashes of African/Latina women “appear thicker because they are more visible in contrast to skin color”? Nice contrast, isn’t it?

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...yet the overwhelming majority of Black American celebrities do NOT get rhinoplasty.

In most cases, it would not be possible to make their noses look European; there is the embarrassment of undergoing cosmetic surgery to alter an ethnic feature while one is in the limelight; one will have to counter criticism by other African-Americans that the person isn’t accepting of his/her Africanness; and some are fine with their noses.

Again, I haven’t just resorted to cosmetic surgery procedures. For instance, are successful African-American men more likely to choose African-American women with less African features compared to the average or more African features?

There is no need for me to answer BSP’s question, “why, if there is an innate preference for “more derived” features, Asian cultures did not consider double eyelids more attractive than single eyelids before 20th century modern Western media saturation” because I haven’t described the double crease in the upper eyelids as more derived.

> Er, in what sense [discussion leaning toward the “hereditarian side]? The idea of an objective preference for beauty or the heritability of physical features?

The heritability of physical features is obviously about heredity. And, it is not an “objective preference for beauty” but whether one can show objectively that most people have a similar notion of beauty. This largely shared preference across cultures will be strongly influenced by heredity. I have discussed numerous such preferences and also preferences associated with some cultures but not others, and preferences resulting from the influence of culture.

I replied to your comment about hip size, child birth and intelligence here.

You mentioned in reference to epicanthal folds...

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> Sorry, but some people take offense to the idea of you pushing off this being an innately disliked trait.

...but I never implied this. My statement was about the nose, and I talked about something that is intrinsically preferred as opposed to something that is intrinsically disliked. There is a difference between these two notions. One can be okay with what one has and still prefer something else. You are also confounding the epicanthal fold with a single/double upper eyelid crease. The eye surgery I am talking about is not one that removes epicanthal folds, but one that adds a second crease in the upper eyelid.

To a greater or lesser extent, an epicanthal fold is present in East Asians. However, not all East Asians have a single crease only in the upper eyelid. Chances are that larger than average eyes have been described as more appealing in women in early Chinese literature, but one does not expect to encounter much in terms of a preference for a double crease to a single crease in the upper eyelid for a number of reasons. The ancient Chinese did not have an alphabet-based language, did not come up with very realistic human sculptures like the ancient Greeks and did not come up with very realistic paintings depicting humans. So where do you expect to encounter a description of the nuances of aesthetic preferences in ancient or even medieval East Asia?

How can you write something like the following?

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> since you push off the idea of the facial structure of whites as being typically more derived- IE, being more suited to chewing and consuming cooked food- are you saying those with less derived features, such as larger jaws, teeth, cheekbones, more prognathistic jaws are more suited to consuming uncooked food, and thus would have greater difficulty chewing and consuming, and recieving adequate nutrition from cooked food? What about how things like how differences in bone density that would factor into this, such as how they would accentuate the strength of such structures, and likewise for differences in muscle strength?

Will jaws better suited to consuming uncooked food have difficulty with cooked food?

Why have I cited many references that also appear at a site that you dislike? Relevant citations will appear wherever they are required. Judge cited papers by their contents, not by who cites them.

Yes, it is your bizarre impression that you believe my arguments to be “non-european women have ugly noses” because I have described ugliness as physical defects/abnormalities, which do not characterize the central tendency in ethnic groups. Pointing out that non-European populations seeking aesthetic plastic surgery to shift the nose toward a more overall derived shape does not imply that their population norms are “ugly.” You must stop smearing my neutral arguments by reducing them to negative adjectives.

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> And if you say that such things can’t be objectively compared, what’s with this?

What’s with this? There is a 7-page section within this site at the time of this writing that you have gone through. It argues WHY there can be no objective comparison across ethnic groups. Why are you asking me this question when you should have gotten the answer by reading this section? If you haven’t understood it, don’t waste your time with this site.

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> Why not be fair and do across group issues?

It is not a question of being fair; the across-group comparison cannot be objectively done.

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> Why not be fair as well and tell us what are the more preffered, intrinsic noses among humans?

Again, no fairness issue here. Nuanced nose aesthetics can only be addressed for broad ethnic groups, not for the human species. I do not have the time to be addressing non-European populations in detail.

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> Primates only had such larger noses due to bigger nasal cavities allowing them to smell better, and differences among nasal structures among human populations are due to climactic differences.

Humans are primates. A derived structure is a derived structure regardless of how it has arrived there: natural selection, sexual selection, random genetic drift. So even if climate were entirely responsible for ethnic variation in nose shape, some ethnic groups could have more derived noses than others.

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> If these could be classified as more “derived”, noses with very tall set bridges, projecting out extensively from the face, and just being huge and meaty overall would fit that. Yet how many people really find that attractive?

If you had understood my argument you would not have brought this up. I have mentioned numerous correlates of beauty, and they act in concert. One of these happens to be a preference for averageness. The preference for a shift toward the somewhat more overall derived end of the ancestral-to-derived discriminant is a preference for a shift away from the average and hence the preference for averageness places an upper bound on the extent of this shift that will be found aesthetically acceptable.

In any case, you have the nose extreme wrong. Whereas the extreme would be very projecting, it wouldn’t be meaty, but finer, and the increase in the projection of the upper nose would be greater than that in the lower nose.

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> 2. Yes, and you still don’t have anything to back up the idea of east asians going for this surgery because of slit-eyes being considered less attractive...

The “slit-eyes” are a combination of epicanthal folds and narrow eyes. The surgical procedure I addressed is not about the epicanthal fold.

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>2. Sorry, but I’m abit unnerved at something like this when you’re offering no fucking middle-ground.

I am not surprised that you are unnerved. You have mistook an innate preference described for nose shape with a preference for lack of epicanthal folds and substituted surgery affecting the number of upper eyelid creases with surgery to alter the epicanthus. To quote you, “I think well over 20% of Korea’s population (just South Korea, not sure about North) naturally lack epicanthic folds, and yet surgery to remove it...” Great, they are having surgery to remove epicanthic folds! You cited a webpage mentioning “so many Koreans lacking the epicanthic fold” but this page did not even mention this fold. You have described a contemptuous reference to “round eyes” (shape) as a dislike for a double crease in the upper eyelid! Should it be surprising that you failed to understand the rest, now described as there being no “fucking middle-ground”?

There are some obvious features among Europeans that may be regarded in neutral or negative terms by some non-Europeans, such as particular hair colors, skin color or average lip thickness.

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> And yes, you really are saying that european features are more preffered. The most “derived” ones happen to be the most common among europeans, so why tap-dance around such basic semantics?

No tap dancing here. If you consider individual facial features, Europeans are not the most derived on all counts, but they are the most derived on most counts, which cannot be distorted to imply that “The most “derived” ones happen to be the most common among Europeans.” So, there is a difference between the ancestral-to-derived discriminant and the non-European-to-European discriminant. Don’t make me repeat this again. This has already been explained in the 7-part section.

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> Yeah, that’s one of the very things I asked in the email. How can you really tell?

There is no need for me to tell. I am not addressing the question who is more masculine and who is feminine. I am just addressing who looks more masculine or more feminine since femininity is a correlate of beauty and the issue is relevant to the question asked at the beginning of the 7-page section.

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> While masculization and femininity can typically work independently of testosterone differences...

LOL! Testosterone is not related to masculinization?

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As for east africans, would you care to quote the relevant passages that push them off as being… mixed?

No, I don’t care to quote. Molecular evidence is not cited for children. Look up the studies and see molecular evidence for mixing, that is if you understand genetics.

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> Either way, east africans don’t look at all like what one would expect of the typical offspring of africans and europeans.

Of course! But I explained the most obvious reason for their looks: sexual selection over a long time. The mixture isn’t recent. A preference for more European-looking faces will result in the differential reproductive success of mixed offspring with faces closer to European norms. Stretch this over many generations and you will end up with faces closer to Europeans notwithstanding a substantial sub-Saharan African component.

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> Stop saying that “it’s been discussed elsewhere on this site”. Erik, I HAVE read much of your site- pretty much all of it beyond the blog entries.

If this is true, then you may have read just about all of it, but you don’t seem to have understood many arguments.

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> I should have clarified more there, but the sort of structures you push off as being largely resultant of chewing food are just too variable in modern human populations.

> Besides, exactly what other “ethnic features” are you reffering to? There’s such considerable overlap among human ethnic groups among the cranio-facial structure, and for them all, there’s only a few distinctive traits truly setting them all apart.

> Compared to Europeans, how different would africans look if you made their jaws flatter and their orbits less dense and round? How different would east asians look compared to europeans if their facial profiles wern’t so flat?

You forgot the noses in the Africans and the wider faces and larger jaws in East Asians, to mention some other differences.

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> Although you could certainly consider less distinctive traits like the overall size of the jaws and cheekbones ethnic traitd due to greatly differing group averages

No. Ethnic features should be considered in terms of a correlation structure underlying differences unless the features are either present in one group but not the other.

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> would this japanese woman look better if she had cheek reduction and the like as you alluded to?

I alluded nothing along the lines of what you argue. Your picture shows a wide-faced woman, and not one with very large and prominent cheekbones that would prompt her to seek cheekbone reduction. Face width is not merely a function of cheekbone size; there is the interorbital pillar, the maxillary bones that are part of the cheeks and the cheekbones.

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> why haven’t you provided what you think are in the proper aestethic range of nasal structure for non-europeans?

I don’t need to come up with this since I am not targeting non-European populations. The chief purpose of my addressing ethnic differences is improving international beauty pageants in light of the fact that an objective comparison of attractiveness cannot be made across ethnic groups. A secondary purpose has emerged from this discussion, namely clarifying the preference related to overall placement along the ancestral-to-derived discriminant, unfortunately to people who don’t have the requisite scientific background.

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> 7. I know you haven’t used the term “despised”, but your tone on this isn’t very neutral.

You knew that I hadn’t used “despised” yet used it. Stop smearing me. I have used completely neutral language.

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> 8: What were you reffering to here?

Apparently nothing that you would understand.

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> This really doesn’t answer much, as you don’t really show what the average difference is between northern and southern european noses.

The qualitative differences mentioned are good enough for the article, which should be familiar to you anyway.

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> And yet why would they go for nasal structures that are more compliant with the sort of culture they despise? It’s hard to say, but I don’t think you can claim victory for those intrinsic nordic features.

The nose structure is not associated with culture, but a people, and they like the straighter and finer nose because they have a preference for it. There is no contradiction by me. The very fact that some features of Northern Europeans are admired by them and others despised means that it cannot be argued that Nordic cultural domination makes them admire Nordic noses or else how does one explain the despised cultural features?

I mentioned Michael Jackson because of his failure to obtain a European nose in reference to Whipped Honey’s question about why only so little surgery and why not all the way to European norms? So what if he attempted to look like a white woman?

I am not going to discuss white men and their supposed common preference for East Asian women unless you show the relevance to the discussion and come up with empirical evidence to back up your contention because I have never gotten this impression.

Your emails mostly are not related to my work, and this will become clear to you when I get around to replying to them. I have a lot of work to do and there are many people apart from you that I have to reply to, both their emails and their blog comments.

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> Also, a few things to note for other posters here:

-Erik proposes that a preference for more “derived” features is due to their pedomorphism, which is considered near-universally attractive, and is considered feminine.

Good Lord!!! I HAVE EXPLICITLY AND REPEATEDLY ARGUED AGAINST PEDOMORPHISM BEING A CORRELATE OF BEAUTY OR THAT IT IS MORE FEMININE.

It appears that you are either incapable of understanding my arguments or are tying me up with useless materials to waste my time. Please stop. If it is the former, then come back to this site after you have acquired the prerequisites to understand it; I cannot provide them to you.

> In this case, if we consider that the more prominent nasal bones are, the more derived they are, hooked noses are then the most derived nose type, no ?

No. Classic hooked noses tend to have a much more prominent lower part than upper part. The lower part comprises of cartilage, not bone.

Contrast the apes with the Greek God in the article. You will note that the upper part of the apes’ nose is almost totally flat but the nose tip is somewhat prominent. How does this change as you move to humans, shown strikingly in the Greek figure of Apollo Belvedere? The upper part of the nose becomes very prominent but the relative increase in the lower part is less.

In the first row of the following image, note how adding implants in the upper nose eliminates the hooked appearance and makes the lower part look less prominent even though it is more prominent because of a tip graft. Look at the Greek figure and then look at the second row below and tell me who has a more derived nose shape?

Hooked noses simply cannot be more derived as in such noses the relative increase in the lower part of the nose is much greater than in the upper part. In the region where hooked noses are most frequent (Middle East and adjoining areas in the Mediterranean and southwest Asia), the cartilage of the nose is also thicker, again not consistent with such noses being more derived. And, nasal bones are more prominent in Northern Europeans.

anon: Please use an alias other than anon. If you see a nose outline resembling a hook, then it qualifies as a hooked nose. Convex nose profiles will lean toward such a look to a greater or lesser extent. The woman on the bottom right is a Southern European type and is probably from Southern Europe/adjoining regions.

Before I reply, I should note that I didn't read much of your site when I sent those emails back in September. I was too impulsive, and having read more of your site, I now realize that much of what I asked was addressed. I can see where I didn't understand what you were getting at there, but if you saw what I've now been saying via private messages to that friend of your's on youtube, well, I think you get the idea. Forget about those emails, but we wouldn't even be having these problems if you had gotten back to me earlier. I mean this must have taken you what, 10-15 minutes to go at? You putting this off has only made things worse.

However, if you could answer atleast one thing right now, you're still not really explaining how something like nasal structures can be ranked as being more "derived". You of course explain how not all structures commonly considered attractive can't be classified under derivation, so how can nasal structures be put along these lines? Isn't that like saying a lack of body hair and thicker lips are more derived than vice versa, because pre-human primates and hominids had a lower frequency of such traits? They're more derived on just a superficial level. Until you can come up with something like proper academic works to go in line with this, their differing attractive values must be due to something else.

Your explanation using those models doesn't really explain much at all. How do differing proportionalizations even factor into this? Where do you get idea of noses in the middle east having more caritilige? How is this even an effect of a hooked structure, and how can this even be identified directly by the human eye?

I know what you mean about the prominence of the nasal bones, but beyond that, I’m not getting how this can still be considered more derived. You could also bring up things like nostril size, but I don’t see any real reasoning here to consider this an across the board “derived” trait, and use that as the basis for it’s great attractive value among females- when it’s involved with such a superficial function, and it’s resemblance to the difference found in non-human primates and hominids came from something superficial overall as well. How this could be selected for among humans for a function that’s so heavily dissipated amongst us, that of our poor sense of smell compared to our ancestors and relatives… I just don’t get it. Just like body hair and lip size, there’s things like longer arm length that were certainly at much higher frequencies and levels among other primates, yet are absurd to be put on an axis of derivation.

To put it simply, the difference that sets apart the nasal structures of humans and other primates is wholly unrelated to the variation seen within humans, unlike what you talk about in regards to chewing structures, though I see some problems with it.